Down and dirty: The 36th congressional district race ends up in the mud

In case you missed this in the print edition of the Houston Chronicle, Texas on the Potomac would like to give you a second chance to take a look.

If neophyte political candidate Stephen Takach was unaware that politics ain’t beanbag, as the saying goes, he’s fully aware now, thanks to his Republican primary runoff experience in the newly created 36th Congressional District with an opponent whose campaign strategy is unorthodox, to say the least.

Steve Stockman (Facebook photo)

Steve Stockman, 55, who served one term in Congress in the 1990s, spurns most public events and candidate forums and rarely talks to news media. Instead, he has blanketed the East Texas district with fake tabloid newspapers emblazoned with such headlines as “Stephen Takach drove family friend into bankruptcy,” “Gunowners Furious as Takach sides with ‘gun grabbers’ ” (Sheila Jackson Lee, Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi) and “Takach smears Stockman for taking care of his Alzheimer’s-stricken father.”

Takach, 50, said last week that he mentioned in a mailing that Stockman had declared bankruptcy in 2002. According to the account in Stockman’s “Times Free Press,” the candidate had to declare bankruptcy because he quit work to tend to his father’s needs – ergo Takach was smearing Stockman for caring for his father, “a World War II veteran who served his country fighting the Nazis.”

“The people that know me are just livid,” Takach said. “They are so upset.”

Takach, a reserved and soft-spoken accountant, acknowledges that he has little recourse for Stockman’s faux newspaper stories, other than trying to communicate with voters in the district, which runs from east Harris County to the Louisiana border. He said he has spent about $450,000 on the race, much of it his own money.

Tabloid ploy not new

Marc Cowart, Takach’s campaign adviser, recalled that Stockman used the tabloid ploy back in 1994, when he pulled off a stunning upset of U.S. Rep. Jack Brooks, D-Beaumont, a powerful 42-year veteran of the House and a Lyndon Johnson protege. Stockman, a political unknown, was part of a wave election that swept Newt Gingrich‘s Republicans into the majority for the first time in 40 years.

He quickly became well known in Texas and beyond after he suggested President Bill Clinton had orchestrated the 1993 Branch Davidian siege to build support for gun control and claimed to have received a fax from a militia supporter that foretold the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. The fax actually was mailed after the bombing.

After losing his seat to Democrat Nick Lampson in 1996, Stockman ran for the Texas Railroad Commission in 1998 and attempted to run for Congress in 2006 as an independent, but did not qualify for the ballot.

Stockman, whose Friendswood home lies outside the district, finished 350 votes behind Takach in May out of more than 54,500 cast in a 12-candidate field.

He originally filed to run in the 14th Congressional District but does not live in that district, either. His signs around the 36th District include references to re-electing “Congressman Stockman,” even though he has not held office since 1996.

A West Virginia native who grew up in Liberty, Takach has worked as a financial adviser for Edward Jones since 1994.

“I deal with my clients every day,” he said, “and they all come in and ask me, ‘What’s going to happen if they raise taxes? What’s going to happen if we go bankrupt?’ I just started to get this desire six or eight years ago that if I ever had the opportunity, I would put my head out there and my name and go run, because I think I have ideas that help.”

Similar positions

Most of Takach’s positions are doctrinaire Republican: against the Affordable Care Act, against amnesty for undocumented immigrants, for traditional marriage, against abortion.

He pointed out that he and his opponent hold similar positions on a number of issues – issues that are closer today to the tea party-infused GOP mainstream than they were when Stockman was in Washington. Back then, Stockman supported a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, as does Takach.

Stockman, who did not respond to requests for comment, has worked in recent years as an accountant, a talk radio host, a bank vice president, an organizer for United Way and as an administrator at the Leadership Institute, according to his campaign website.

He had raised nearly $95,000 as of June 30, and has been endorsed by former Colorado U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, Christian Right leaders Tim and Beverly LaHaye, U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler, and tea party groups.

The winner of the July 31 runoff will face Democrat Max Martin, an educational software consultant from Clear Lake City who has done little campaigning in the Republican-heavy district.